How do you cook bacon?

I buy the pre-cooked stuff and heat in microwave. Easy peasy.
The strips are small, so I can eat 3 without feeling guilty.

^^^ Same here, haha.
Sometimes I buy Turkey Bacon, a lot less greasy. I hate grease!
I hate cooking it, cleaning it up, but….the few times I have fried real bacon I fry it hot with a lid to avoid the spatter and then drain it on quadruple layers of paper towels.
I only like bacon on BLTs, not a bacon fan in general.

You can get a splatter shield to help with the spattering flying grease or you can experiment with more novel ways to cook bacon.

Lately I have been bbQing my bacon. No grease mess. Bacon tastes delicious!

Another way is to deep fry the bacon. Yes, it works and the bacon comes out surprisingly grease free. {The bacon grease does ruin the cooking oil though}.

I’ve tried this a couple times, boil the bacon in the pan before frying it. The water in the bacon boils off with the water in the pan. The bacon stays flat and crispy after finishing frying it.

I put it on a hot frying pan until it’s crispy on both sides. I don’t have a huge splatter problem and I don’t care if the strips aren’t flat. It all tastes the same no matter what the shape. I find turkey bacon stays flat without any extra effort, but it’s not as tasty as the real stuff.

I don’t cook bacon.
I cook Tempeh.
FACON!!!
♡ :-P

I really hate crispy bacon. I like it thoroughly cooked and browned, but pliant and chewable. I fry it on medium heat, I don’t use any kind of splatter guard (I’ve never had any problem with splatter). I let it cook on one side until it turns translucent, then turn it and leave it until it’s cooked through and browning. I usually turn it a total of 2–3 times to get an even brown. Then wrap it in paper towel until the fat is absorbed away, and serve. Oh, one thing I do differently than most people is that I cut the strips in half – mainly because I freeze it in small quantities, and it thaws faster if it’s in halves. As a side effect, it fits better in the pan and cooks more evenly.

On occasions when I’m serving to a lot of people, I cook bacon by putting the whole package into the pan, then moving it back and forth with a spatula until it gets the same even browning. Not that much harder, though sometimes I have to do the last few pieces a little longer. And then you always get those odd people who want it so crispy you can’t even taste it anymore, so I leave some longer for them.

I’ve tried baking bacon, and I don’t care for the end result at all. I don’t like the texture, and it never gets that awesome golden brown colour. Pre-cooked is just gross.

I only cook 2 or 3 slices at a time – one serving. A pound of bacon can last me 2 weeks. I put the slices between 2 layers of paper towels and microwave them on a Rubbermaid Microwave cookware rack that I got for $1.00 at GoodWill. 4 minutes is usually enough.
The bacon is well drained, flat, and perfectly cooked.
As an added bonus, the greasy paper towels go into my wood burning stove and become fire starter.

Mmmm… bacon.

(Does anyone else think “RubberMaid” sounds like a sex toy company?)

Just happened to come across this great tip yesterday.

Here is a picture of the rack I use. I’ll bet there’s one in the GoodWill right down the road from you.

I usually buy a thickish bacon. Often I cut the strips in half so I can easily fit them in my pan. I cut away some of the fat on the end. I cook it on the stove about a half a pound at a time in a large skillet. I like it just as it starts to crisp up.

I am considering switching to microwaving it, sounds like less clean up.

There is a dish I make that calls for large bacon pieces. I cut the bacon across to make squares and then cook it in a pot. When the fat foams up it’s done.

I don’t make bacon often.

I like thick bacon, and it is always a challenge for me to cook it just right. I don;t have a microwave, but a microwave with a bacon pan was the best way i ever tried.

This post has inspied me to try new ways of cooking bacon! Yay Fluther!

Great answers all around, even for tempeh. Tempeh, phhhfftth!

@zenvelo Why don’t you have a microwave? There are always about half a dozen at my favorite store (GoodWill) for about $5 to $10 and they are spotless! I don’t know how they clean them so well!

I buy a pre-cooked brine-cured Canadian bacon directly from my butcher. It’s low in nitrates, reasonably low-fat as bacon goes, and still very delicious.

Only on a frying pan over an open wood fire in the country miles from anywhere and usually early in the morning.

Well before I quit eating bacon I used to love to bake it!. I miss how fun and easy it was on a skillet too… Just pop on the cooker, lay the bacon down and boom! Eventually it starts frying on its own haha.

Speaking of bacon, since there’s a lot of people here, what are some, “healthy” alternatives to bacon? Turkey bacon? is there a nice vegetarian sort of bacon thing out there?

@LuckyGuy I don’t have one, either! I didn’t grow up with one, so I never feel like I need it.

I bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan.

We have an indoor grill that we use – the grooves allow the grease to drain away so it comes out crispy. We buy our bacon from local farms, and it’s usually pretty thick.

It depends how much bacon I’m cooking. If it’s a lot I’ll do it on rack over sheet tray in the oven so the grease can drip off and get nice and crispy. If I’m making myself breakfast however I’ll cook it in a pan and then cook my hash browns in the bacon grease. MMMM sooo good.

@pleiades According to this, you might as well eat real bacon over turkey bacon. Any benefit from eating turkey is offset by the amount of crap they put in it to make it processed bacon. With real bacon (organic), it’s just a slice off a pig. Not nearly as processed.

Everything in moderation. Pass the bacon.

I fry it in a cast iron skillet as God intended it.

[Mod says] This question is in the General Section – responses must relate to the OP about techniques for cooking bacon, please.

I cook a small portion in a frying pan and flip continuously until cooked, then I taste when it is good then I eat one piece at a time.

I fry my bacon on a electric griddle i use a presto model with legs that swing out and tilt the cooking surface towards the grease collector.

We spend the better part of our Sunday mornings leisurely cooking bacon.

@talljasperman One piece at a time? Who does that? I sandwich my bacon with two pieces of bacon. Sometimes I just shovel it in.

Does anybody ever sprinkle theirs with cayenne pepper, brown sugar, or maple syrup?

M. Maple syrup would be good. It’s good on ham too.

Hey…can they make bacon out of beef animals too?

Facon has cayenne, maple syrup, liquid smoke… Just no fat dripping down my chin.

Beef bacon? That’s jerky, kind of. Has anyone ever tried to dehydrate bacon, or would it not work because of the fat content?

Freeze dried bacon? Astronauts would love that!

Well, I’m just thinking that you could take any meat and cut it into thin strips. I wonder what beef bacon would taste like, and why don’t they make it?

@Dutchess_III – We’re veering off-topic, a bit. Bacon is made from pork belly; I’m not sure if the biology of cows is similar enough to have the same cut, since their digestive system is so different. However, turkey “bacon” is processed to look similar, so I suppose any meat-like substance could be processed to have a similar texture and taste.

@GloPro I get sick if I eat too much bacon at once…. When I am full then I put the leftovers in the freezer and microwave one piece at a time.

@GloPro
Facon is healthier too :)

Also another thing I really like is tofu jerky (can’t find a source sorry).
I bought single jerky strips they were really good.
:-P

Alton Brown says to cook it with a waffle iron to evenly distribute the heat—although I’ve never done that. I either use a skillet/frying pan on high and then bring the heat on low so it doesn’t get too crispy/burnt. I like to use some of the remaining grease for eggs/french toast.

Bacon grease is good to cook with.

I use a stainless steel frying pan. I cut the bacon in half first. Much easier to flip. No pun intended. I cook it until crispy. Nothing beats crispy bacon. I also salt it. I know that sounds crazy but I love it.

Oh, man @flip86. That’s a lot of salt!

@flip86 why add salt?
I’ve heard that bacon tastes really salty already I don’t know I’ve never had it.
I couldn’t give any really great cooking instructions on bacon.
I’ve seen some people who eat it almost charred and I’ve seen some people eat it almost what looks raw to me.

Some people just really like salt @KaY_Jelly. I used to date a guy who put embarrassing amounts of salt on everything he ate.

@KaY_Jelly I swear bacon use to have way more sodium when I was a kid. I’m 30 now. I don’t add a ton of salt, just enough to make it taste like I remember it.

@Dutchess_III I want to get a t-shirt made that says “I salt bacon”.

the best way ive found is baked at 400, in cake pan or tray lined with foil, flip once if you like, . let grease cool when done, lift foil out, no mess. I pepper heavily before baking.
to the person cooking one serving at a time…me too, a lb at once, leftovers in ziploc, fridge, 15 seconds in micro on papertowel, never lasts to the 3rd day

Peppering bacon… that I need to try. Thanks!

I use the paper egg crates and spread the bacon on them. Microwave and all the fat drips down and then I have BLT bacon that is crispy.

@dappled_leaves You can get peppered bacon at a good butcher counter. My local market has a whole platter of it available for sale.

When I still cooked bacon, years ago, I used @LuckyGuy‘s method: several slices per serving wrapped in a paper towel, laid on a tempered glass plate and microwaved for five minutes. It never occurred to me to used the greasy paper towels as fire starters.

When i don’t have benton’s bacon i like to throw it on the smoker for a while before cooking it. Thick cut and lean cooked in a cast iron skillet three or so strips at a time at low temp to render out as much fat as i can.

Bacon wrapped around jalapeno peppers stuffed with cream cheese. On the grill.

Re: How much do you cook at a time? Rick, for whatever reason, will cook the entire pound up. This means we have 4 (at least) strips of left overs that sit in the fridge for a few days until I give it to the dogs.
When I cook it, I cook until I think there is enough for both of us, then put what’s left back in the freezer.
Last Sunday, for example, Rick hadn’t bought bacon. But that was OK,because I had 3 bags of “leftover” from the previous weeks so I fried that up.

@Dutchess_III One of my favorite appetizers to make is long hots stuffed with cream cheese and butterflied shrimp and then wrapped in bacon. Cook em for about 15 min at 450 and throw the broiler on at the end to get the bacon nice and crispy. MMM

Only problem is, bacon is SO fattening! I really try not to eat much of it. Poppers though…I’ll break every rule I have regarding bacon!